Friday Runaround: Did You Write Gambit And The Champions?

Let’s get right into it. In 2010, the US Federal Minimum Wage was $7.25 per hour. Figuring a 36 hour work week (factoring in unpaid lunches), it meant that someone working a minimum wage job was earning $261.00 per week before paying any taxes. In 2010, the average cover price for a typical 32 page superhero comic was $2.99 (1). In other words, to purchase ONE comic would cost 1.15% of someone’s weekly income. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it represents one of the highest price points in the history of comics. I’ll show this more concretely as we go forward, but for now I wanted to compare that to another key benchmark in the history of comics: the publishing of Fantastic Four #1 in 1961. This is especially timely since the Fantastic Four just celebrated their 50th anniversary. FF #1 was cover priced at 10 cents US. The US Federal Minimum Wage in 1961 was $1.15 per hour and, figuring the same 36 hour work week, a person would have earned $41.40 per week. To purchase the first issue of Fanastic Four, a person working minimum wage would have spent only 0.24% of their pay cheque. That is a stunning difference in price. To put this even more plainly: it represents a 379.2% increase in the price in relation to minimum wage from 1961 to 2010.

LobdellWatch: From the new Marvel Vault: Gambit comic by George Tuska and… somebody.

So… who actually wrote the original? Anyone know?

UPDATE: It was Scott Lobdell, or rather his name was on the voucher. Scott wrote the plot, now vanished, unremembered, and George Tuska drew from that. So now we have a chance to see unseen George Tuska artwork, who kept drawing untoil the day he died…

InterviewWatch: Canon, in character interviews with the cast of Our Love Is Real…

JOK: (laughs) Have you seen these plant fuckers? Hippies and pussies, all of them. Look at me. I’ll take on 20 myself, no problem. We put them down every night. Point of no return? I doubt it.

ByrneWatch: On the last page of the X-Men Hidden Years trade paperback from Marvel UK, they announce more collections to come.

BrazilWatch: Gal Editora, a small Brazilian publisher, has been getting a lot of attention for its releases of American comics. First, they are releasing here this month Blazing Combat through a deal with Fantagraphics with this trailer;

We also hear they will be publishing the Love And Rockets series, in a series of tradepaperbacks starting next year.

Order 5,000 copies of Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 (JUN110611D) or Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 Second Printing Bagley Variant (JUN118244D) — or any combination of the two — from August 25 through August 29, and you will receive a free full page ad for your store in upcoming Marvel comicbooks, either of your design or designed along with Marvel. Qualifying retailers will be contacted by Marvel to coordinate design of the ad.

One factor that I don’t think has been discussed anywhere is that the move to Day Early Delivery changed the manner (and timing) with which Diamond processes reorders–it can now take ten days or more for many stores to receive backlist orders. I tend to suspect that slower reorders lead inexorably to fewer turns, and that will be the bulk of the lower sales on the book side of the Direct Market.